I have arrived to Jerusalem and it has never felt so nice to lay down and have running water! After our 4 hour flight to New York and than an 11 hour flight to Tel Aviv I am officially tired of flying, of eating airplane food, and sitting for long periods of time. It is crazy to see all of us students working together and fighting through the airport crowds as a group. There are 80 students on the trip and they come from BYU, BYU-Idaho, and BYU-Hawaii and vary in majors. It is also funny to walk up to the 5th floor (the first floor with internet) and see all the chairs full with people posting on blogs and emailing friends and family. Which by the way, I won't be able to post pictures until I find a group of 3 students to travel into the city and find a cafe with internet access but I will try to post at least my feelings and experiences more often.

After arriving at Tel Aviv we boarded two buses headed to the BYU Jerusalem Center. It has never been so hard to keep my eyes open than on this 45 minute ride.  Although I was able to sleep a good 4-5 hours on the plane, it wasn't comfortable (since I found out with an hour left you can recline the fancy international plane seats) and it was hard to stay asleep with the excitement. We also had a very funny experience on our way to the Jerusalem Center as we passed another University only a few blocks away.  There were neat white art fictures in the grass and as we looked there was a man standing in the middle of one of the pieces with his back toward the road. He stood there for a good couple of minutes (while we were stopped at a traffic light)  until we also started wondering if he was peeing in a public place (very public right on the side of the road). Our Instructor Brother Belnap very seriously made a comment about this young man saying he might be praying. All of us students became very serious trying to show respect for this new culture and religious practice. Than Brother Belnap started laughing saying he was only joking and that the man was in deed taking a pit stop. Rather than this funny site we gained a general idea of how Jerusalem would look. It was neat to see that the interstate we were driving on was built around the city instead of through the city like in the states. Having this said it was cool to see huge white buildings made of white stones all along the hill side while on the other side there were deserts, random hills, and many many olive trees.

Once we arrived here and were welcomed with clapping, juice, and a piece of bread we met all the instructors and administrators. It is so neat to see all the different cultures working together! The university's employees are made of local residents as well as church members called to serve couple missions in this area, and also instructors from BYU here for a short time. We also took a tour of the Jerusalem Center, which is commonly referred to throughout the town as "Mormon University" and is huge.  I hope to post so many pictures of this beautiful place! It is full of big glass windows which show of the amazing scenes of Jerusalem. We also received our schedule for the Old Testament class we will be taking for the first block of the semester and the 8 nursing students met to talk about clinicals.  Clinicals are when we work in 4 of the local hospitals. As I sat through these meetings I was hit with the realization that I will need the Lord's help to get me through this
Semester!  Although this is an amazing experience, it also is school and needs to be taken seriously! It was also sad to see that most days that are left blank in our schedule so that we can travel around the city in our own groups, will be filled with hospital experience to make up our clinical hours.

Well family and friends, It is late here and we have an early morning starting at 730 so I better call it quits! Tomorrow has a tour of the city planned so stay tuned ;)